Leveraging Data to Create a More Equitable Future with Matt Cox of Greenlink Analytics

Clean energy and equity issues are among the most pressing challenges faced by our society. These issues are complex and are often intertwined in ways that are difficult to illustrate and understand. How do we get everyone around the table  looking at the same data in an intuitive format that drives positive change?

In this episode of the Digital Footprint podcast, Richard Simms talks with Matt Cox, the CEO of Greenlink Analytics. Matt sheds light on his team's data driven approach to understanding and addressing these challenges across our communities and country.

Matt also shared his journey in launching the Greenlink Equity Map (GEM), a SaaS product that provides users with powerful and dynamic data map-based visualizations related to various equity indicators. He speaks about the challenges along the way and what he and his team have learned as they transition to offering not just consulting services but also their own digital product.

Tune in to hear more about how this software tool is helping communities and nonprofits drive positive change.

Guest-at-a-Glance

💡 Name: Matt Cox

💡 What he does: Matt is the CEO of Greenlink Analytics.

💡 Company/Project: Greenlink Analytics / Greenlink Equity Map (GEM).  Check them out on Facebook, Twitter, and the official Greenlink Analytics LinkedIn profile to find out more about the company's social outreach.

💡 Noteworthy: Matt and Greenlink Analytics focus on helping people understand and address some of the most pressing challenges facing American society. Through powerful data visualization and expert insights, they help cities, states, and NGOs hone in on data-backed strategies to drive positive change in our communities.

💡 Where to find Matt: LinkedIn.

Want to bring a SaaS product to market, quickly?
Book a consultation: https://tyrannosaurustech.com/contact/

Connect with our cohosts Richard Simms & Carlos Gonzalez on Linkedin

Transcript

E661389B_5 - TT - Digital Footprint - Matt Cox - Transcript

[00:00:00] Richard Simms: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Digital Footprints. I'm Richard Simms. This podcast is brought to you by Tyrannosaurus Tech, an award-winning technology partner, dedicated to designing and developing high impact [00:00:15] software products. So this is actually episode four. Wow. We're flying through this podcast. We're having a lot of fun with it.

[00:00:23] And we have a really good guest today, Matt Cox, CEO of Greenlink Analytics. Matt, we're really excited to have you [00:00:30] on the show.

[00:00:31] Matt Cox: [00:00:31] Yeah. Thanks Richard. More than happy to be here.

[00:00:34] Richard Simms: [00:00:34] Awesome. Yeah, I've been looking forward to this. And it's funny, we got to know your team over the last few years because we actually work out of the same office building here in Atlanta and [00:00:45] obviously really liked your team and all of our interactions. And then of course, the way it works out is we began actually working with you all in March of

[00:00:53] 2020, so all of our opportunities to collaborate, face to face, went out the window pretty quick, [00:01:00] but we've made it work. We've had a lot of fun working with you all, even remotely. And again, it's the great irony, we had never really had any clients truly in the building, and now we have two clients in this small building, but can't meet any of them

[00:01:15] [00:01:14] face-to-face, so you never know what you're going to get, but all right, cool. Let's jump into the actual interview. So first just to lay some groundwork here. Matt, do you mind just taking a minute or two to introduce yourself and [00:01:30] tell the listeners a little bit about Greenlink Analytics?

[00:01:33] Matt Cox: [00:01:33] Yeah, sure. So I'm Matt Cox, I'm the CEO and founder of Greenlink Analytics. We're a 501C3 that's based in Atlanta. We focus on clean energy and equity transitions.

[00:01:45] [00:01:44] So trying to push ourselves towards a clean energy transition as fast and fair as possible, is our primary focus. We work mostly in the United States, the city and the state level. So we're working with 75 cities across more [00:02:00] than 20 States in the country, to help them figure out how to make that transition.

[00:02:06] And then what kind of impacts they should expect from different strategies that they pursue. Whether that's around like public health impacts, economic [00:02:15] development impacts, policy design advice, all of those kinds of things. So it's a pretty heavy data space that we're in, where we're collecting tons of information and trying to figure out how to best present that to make projections into the future around that.

[00:02:30] [00:02:30] So Greenlink has been active in that area for the last six years. Prior to that, I was the city of Atlanta's first energy manager and helped really push the city forward in terms of moving from [00:02:45] not really ranked for energy policy, to being about fourth in the country, by the time I left the office.

[00:02:51] And then before that I did my PhD in climate and energy policy at Georgia tech, where I created the first comprehensive set of carbon and energy [00:03:00] footprints for the a hundred largest cities in the US and looked at those over a decade long window and helped figure out why they were, what they were, what the drivers were as well as which strategies over that decade had led to [00:03:15] progress, had been more successful policy approaches.

[00:03:18] So we're definitely a policy shop, but we break into different segments that's between, our analyst team or our equity teams or data science teams that all have [00:03:30] their piece of the pie.

[00:03:30]Richard Simms: [00:03:30] pie. Awesome. Yeah, that's a great intro and I have always thought what you all do is super interesting.

[00:03:38] And I know that, on your website, the, the header is "Data for good", which I really liked because it's a [00:03:45] complex range of topics you all address. And that's a good succinct way to frame it in my mind. And I know you all have had a really big impact in what you do. On the website again, I was revisiting it before this call,

[00:03:57] you all even are able to reference [00:04:00] lives saved, through your work, which is super powerful. I'd love to have you expand a little bit on how you all view your impact? What kind of, metrics you're tracking? And then if you can expand a little on just like the type of [00:04:15] equity and energy related issues, you all look to tackle because, again that's a big a big arena.

[00:04:21] In a good way, there's a lot of opportunity and a lot of good to be done to help people and, improve our communities, but for a lot of us who don't have your [00:04:30] expertise we don't necessarily know all the layers of the onion there. Yeah. I think looking at all the different ways that you can try to do good is a interesting way to spend what's normally cast through negative terms, whether it's on things like climate change or [00:04:45] equity there's always two pieces to that. There's the opportunity to do it better.

[00:04:49] Matt Cox: [00:04:49] It's always there at the same time. And so a lot of, for a lot of the work that we do continuing kind of baseline business as usual is the worst possible outcome and everything that we're going to recommend [00:05:00] and look at is an improvement over that.

[00:05:02] Richard Simms: [00:05:02] Right.

[00:05:03] Matt Cox: [00:05:03] The metrics that we track on a regular basis, our impact on CO2 emissions.

[00:05:08] So right now we're slightly over three and a half billion tons of CO2 avoided through our work. Which is [00:05:15] huge. That's coming up on a national level emissions reductions and then we're also we track the dollars saved from that, which is now over about 400 billion, from the research and the work that we've done.

[00:05:30] [00:05:30] And then also, as you mentioned live saved. And so we don't always get projects where it's easy or amenable to, to include the live saved metric, but for the ones where we can track that's now also over a thousand lives saved. And so we try to keep, [00:05:45] regular progress and tracking on how we're doing with our projects, and how they contribute to those targets.

[00:05:50] On the energy and the equity stuff that we tend to focus, tend to focus

[00:05:54] on the energy side, it's a lot of energy systems. So like you have to have a systems thinking approach [00:06:00] to this, or you're not going to understand what's happening, because everything is changing on an hour by hour basis with our energy systems.

[00:06:08] The recent disaster in Texas is I think is a great example of where you had, cascading failures of what [00:06:15] was happening with gas plants or coal plants or renewables, and what kind of interconnections Texas had to other parts of the country. All of those kind of played their role at a different time,

[00:06:27] that all in that case had [00:06:30] cascading failures that led to the problems that they experienced. But you have to have that kind of perspective on what's happening at any moment. And not just for power, but you need that for transportation. What's happening at six in the evening is totally different than what's happening at six in the [00:06:45] morning in most cities.

[00:06:46] So if we want to have like good high quality measures that, that kind of temporal geographic aspect, like all of that stuff has to be brought to the table. And when it's not, you find very [00:07:00] large errors and mistakes and the estimates that come down, like you'll see, it's not uncommon to see errors that are 30% or greater, just because somebody takes a little bit of a shortcut on that front. On equity, we do a lot of work, and [00:07:15] energy equity is our bread and butter for that. So it's a lot of work on what's called energy burden, which is the percent of household income that's spent on utility bills. So nationally the average is about 3%. It goes between three and 4%, [00:07:30] depending on the year,

[00:07:30] and the state of the economy. Households are considered in high energy burden, if they spend more than 6%, or severe energy burden, if they spend more than 10% of their income on utility bills, and that's a concern. Not just because it shows [00:07:45] disparities, but there's a, there's obviously a financial stress of spending, higher and higher levels of your income on your energy bills.

[00:07:51] But it's also connected to a lot of other problems. Connections where households that are highly energy burdened are much more likely to skip [00:08:00] meals or to not get prescriptions filled in order to pay the utility bills. The number one reason that people use payday lenders across the United States is to pay a utility bill.

[00:08:11] And if you are already low income, and then find yourself using a [00:08:15] payday lender to do, to pay utility bill, it's not difficult to see what we've now found statistically true, that there is a significant correlation between evictions and energy burden. You can start to [00:08:30] see how those cycles of poverty build on each other and create negative outcomes across the country.

[00:08:36] Now we started to take that to very high resolution looks, instead of just talking about what's happening nationally. We actually bring it down to a neighborhood level [00:08:45] and help cities and states figure out what's happening with these equity issues. And since things are so connected our primary area of expertise is the energy burden

[00:08:55] areas, but there's also connections to healthcare. There's connections [00:09:00] to, racial equity issues housing problems. And so a lot of the stuff that we ended up doing is actually mapping those correlations and trying to bring in people that can help work across multiple issues.

[00:09:13] It requires a team [00:09:15] approach really.

[00:09:16] Richard Simms: [00:09:16] Yeah that, yeah, that's a great explanation. And it's really interesting stuff. I think one of the things I've enjoyed about working with you and your team, although, my level of of expertise is still a drop in the bucket compared to you all, [00:09:30] but just getting a sense of

[00:09:31] the types of data sets you all work with, some of which are really intuitive, it might be income level, but some are things that I wouldn't necessarily have thought of as interrelated in some capacity. [00:09:45] But as you said, just, I think just getting to know you all has helped me grasp

[00:09:50] the cascading affects, as you said, and how interconnected all of these things are. And of course, I think in a very good way progressively a lot of these [00:10:00] things are coming more to the forefront of the public consciousness. And certainly I think personally, one of my biggest sentiments with COVID in the last year is just how

[00:10:10] connected everyone is, right? So it's, all very important work [00:10:15] and resonates with me and our team a lot, I know. So to make a little bit of a segue, I know that historically, Greenlink Analytics has been more consulting, oriented, services based, if you will.

[00:10:30] [00:10:29] But one of the main reasons that I wanted to bring you on the show, of course is you all have launched a digital product, the Greenlink Equity Map, which I know we all affectionately call GEM. And I think that was almost seven or eight months ago that [00:10:45] it went live, I think. Yeah, tell us a little bit more about the product itself and what you all are up to on that front.

[00:10:51] Matt Cox: [00:10:51] Yeah, so GEM is really exciting for us. It's a software platform that we are using with more than 50 cities, [00:11:00] and have now recently just opened the door for hundreds of community-based organizations to access all over the country, to be able to take a look at their specific geographies, and be able to explore the data that's impacting [00:11:15] their communities, it's data on their communities that they can.

[00:11:18] We propose that this is going to work as a way to do joint meaning-making, between government, so like city staff local county agencies, whomever [00:11:30] and community to come in and have a shared basis of facts,

[00:11:35] Richard Simms: [00:11:35] facts

[00:11:36] Matt Cox: [00:11:36] so that it's not just one group coming in to say, "We felt like this has been a problem for awhile."

[00:11:41] Because most governments don't react to anecdote. [00:11:45] They're not going to make policy off of anecdote, or if they feel like it's anecdotal. And so a lot of the times, the data is being used to actually show that it's not just anecdotal. Here's, here's, what's actually happening on the ground in these communities,

[00:11:59] and now that we've got [00:12:00] that shared databases, we can start to discuss the policies that we want to pursue, that are going to improve the situation. So that's been really powerful and one of the first, first waves of activity that's [00:12:15] happening within GEM. But GEM allows us to take a look at 25 different equity indicators at a neighborhood level, anywhere in the United States,

[00:12:22] so across all 73,000 census tracks, that we can drill down to. We can search for anything based, any way that you can search for something [00:12:30] in Google, you can search for it in GEM. So you can look at zip codes, you can look at neighborhood names. We can go to specific cities, of course. And just start to see what is the state of play?

[00:12:41] What's our current condition look like? And then now we're expanding that also [00:12:45] to start to look at many years worth of data, so we can see how things have been changing over time. So you can better tell the story of, "Why" and "How" did we end up where we are. Are things changing in the direction that we want to see them go?

[00:12:57] And if so, what's driving that, [00:13:00] or are they, not going in that direction and also why? And what might we do to address this? And so we're seeing really great immediate impacts on just engagement strategies that, that both community-based organizations and [00:13:15] cities are using to talk with each other, because simply having this information is something they've never had access to before.

[00:13:22] And so once they can actually explore that, there's a lot more work happening to go, "Oh here's where the actual equity [00:13:30] issues are. We're going to focus more of our resources there, in those communities, as opposed to having a little bit more of an equality mindset, which was more where they were starting from, if we've got this kind of a problem, we'll hold eight meetings, let's break the city into [00:13:45] quadrants and just put two in every quadrant."

[00:13:47] Which is how a lot of stuff would've gone forward in the past. So this has been great just to see that change of process, but now it's translating, and like you mentioned, it's only been yeah, six months since, since it went [00:14:00] live, but we're seeing a new policies and programs being stood up in these cities already, where they're taking the information and developing new offerings based on what they can see.

[00:14:11] And this is again, it's like the first time that they've actually had the ability to do [00:14:15] that. And so it's helping to break down silos, inside a city hall and across the nonprofit sectors, in these cities where you've now got, an office of housing and office of public health, the sustainability office and the planning offices, like all coming together to pool resources, [00:14:30] because you can see very clearly in the platform how these multiple indicators

[00:14:35] overlap on each other, and can start to identify, many of these communities are struggling with four or five, six, seven equity [00:14:45] issues simultaneously. And so we've only got, one office with the resources of that one office trying to address it. We're probably not doing the work that needs to be done, and we're not going to be as efficient,

[00:14:58] as we could be. We could make [00:15:00] things better, faster in these communities, if we had the right people at the table with the right kinds of resources. And so I think that's a lot, that's a lot that's going on, but it's a really exciting spot to be a helping to make that kind of change happen,

[00:15:14] and seeing that [00:15:15] occur all over the country.

[00:15:18] Richard Simms: [00:15:18] Yeah, for sure. And it's a very powerful product. And what I know of course, and you alluded to, is I think you all are just the beginning, right? Which is how things should work. You've launched [00:15:30] a really powerful, really impactful product. You're learning a lot from the rapid adoption and the users and their, additional needs and wants.

[00:15:38] And I know there's a big vision for, as you mentioned, getting more historical data represented and other things that I know are in the [00:15:45] pipeline, that's going to just that much more broad the impact. So yeah, it's really cool. And for us a lot of the fun of it and working with you all as the data experts is

[00:15:56] that problem or fun challenge of how to visualize this [00:16:00] data in a way that is, relatively easy to understand across these different user types. As you mentioned, if it's within a government, you need know these different departments to be able to come together, comprehend this, have the same takeaways and then focus [00:16:15] on what the action is to make an impact.

[00:16:17] I think that, data visualization in the public health spaces is super interesting. And particularly overlaying data sets is is a fun like user interface challenge.

[00:16:28] But I think it's all come together [00:16:30] a, in a really cool way. So taking a step back, I guess one question I had is, leading up to you all, deciding you are going to move forward in building this platform.

[00:16:38] I assume that wasn't just a light bulb idea the day before, this must have been in the works for awhile. Like what kind [00:16:45] of, what was that evolution like, where you started identifying there was a need for this product and, what did it take for you to get to that point where you all were ready to pursue it as a team?

[00:16:56] Matt Cox: [00:16:56] Yeah. So for us, it really all goes back to, when we were brought [00:17:00] on as the lead consultants for the clean energy Atlanta plan, which was Atlanta is a hundred percent clean energy transition. So they had set a policy council, city council in Atlanta, and set a policy that by 2035, the entirety of the city would [00:17:15] be running on a hundred percent clean electricity.

[00:17:19] And then they tasked us with figuring out how to do that. And so one of the things that we made out of that was the first energy burden map of the city of Atlanta. And you just [00:17:30] saw this dramatic difference between North and South, and also by race the white areas. And now this is like really obvious in GEM, but when you map this, there is no area in Atlanta, that's in the top

[00:17:43] third of being, [00:17:45] predominantly white neighborhoods and being in the top third energy burden. There's no neighborhoods that's true for. They're all predominantly black neighborhoods in the city. And so that became obvious in the geography that you were seeing that, the South side of the city, which is the [00:18:00] predominantly black side of the city was also the area that was predominantly struggling with higher energy costs.

[00:18:06] And so we used, we created that first map and that changed part of the process for developing the plan, but that moved us to a spot where we [00:18:15] started to think, we probably are going to see more use for this than just Atlanta. And so we started a process of developing these maps in Tableau. We went through a data process that allowed us to collect the information [00:18:30] across the country, instead of needing to get it each time through a specific request from utilities, which was its own kind of process. And then we started to develop these maps in Tableau. But Tableau was a bit difficult to work [00:18:45] with, for us. Eventually you start to process so much data that Tableau will seize up, or it will refresh in the middle of a presentation. You have to sit there and wait, if you don't have a great internet connection, it becomes another whole ordeal around that [00:19:00] process.

[00:19:01] So we started down a path and went to one of the foundations who act similarly to project specific venture capital in our space to say, "We think this is [00:19:15] something that's worth pursuing." We partnered with the urban sustainability directors network to put a survey out to the sustainability directors across North America,

[00:19:24] to say, do you have an issue with accessing equity data? Is this something that you guys are struggling with? And we got a response [00:19:30] back that more than 120 sustainability directors said, "Yes we want to work on this. We don't have the data that would allow us to do that." And so when we presented that back up to the foundations the Kresge foundation came in and funded us,

[00:19:45] [00:19:45] to develop that first, the first round of of GEM. And the only thing they were, we were really on the hook for, we could have just made, several dozen of those Tableau maps, and met the requirement. But my vision for where we wanted to go [00:20:00] was, "Let's move out of Tableau. Let's stand up a separate software product,

[00:20:03] that's going to be able to meet this need in a much more substantial way, and allow us to scale and iterate and do all of the wonderful things we can do with a [00:20:15] separate software product, as opposed to having, 50 snapshots that are locked in that moment in time." So yeah, we moved in that direction.

[00:20:22] It was an ambitious choice for us to go forward with, but it worked out that was definitely the right move for us.

[00:20:30] [00:20:30] Richard Simms: [00:20:30] Yeah. That's awesome. And I think just working in the technology space, I love that story because, so many folks dream of doing a startup,

[00:20:40] and that's great. We love that. That's what we thrive on in a lot of ways, is people [00:20:45] looking to innovate. There's always a misconception that it's just a bright idea that comes out of nowhere, and then you're just jumping in with both feet. I think we really enjoy working on products like GEM, where you all have extensive experience in [00:21:00] that space.

[00:21:00] You understand all the ins and outs. Over time you've identified this pain point partially through your own efforts, to gather this data and present it in a compelling way. And then a lot of the kind of initial [00:21:15] discovery work and user research,  a lot of that's already wrapped up in the work you've already done.

[00:21:20] You mentioned the surveys you do, and that way, of course, you're just coming in a much better position to succeed and launch something that's adopted, which obviously is how it's played out with [00:21:30] GEM. So it's I think a good illustration of a good way to go about that process of taking a leap and building something you knew. So

[00:21:38] Matt Cox: [00:21:38] Yeah. We've interviewed at this point, several hundred sustainability [00:21:45] professionals, businesses, community-based organizations, really to just understand what is it that they needed to see, how things were working for them right now. And obviously that's an ongoing process, it doesn't really stop. We go through [00:22:00] periods where it's, heavier or lighter for us, but it is,

[00:22:04] it's a continuous process of just making sure that we're understanding what's working, what's not, what could be better. And then also made it so that when, we partnered with you all to do that first build, we interviewed about a [00:22:15] hundred people, just to inform what that would look like, so that we could come in to say, "These are the problems.

[00:22:20] This is how we think it should be solved. This is, here's some mock-ups that we took to people. This is what they, the feedback that they got to us." So it was definitely not a not just to [00:22:30] jump in with your eyes closed. I think we tried to take a really a scientific approach to these are our hypotheses about how the thing needs to be structured,

[00:22:37] and this is the support we've gotten back from our interviews from, we call it our listening tours, from our listening tours, this is what we've learned.

[00:22:45] [00:22:45] Richard Simms: [00:22:45] Yeah. I think it's all about validating or disproving your assumptions about what people want or how they'll behave. And I agree. I think in all of our experience with you all come about it from a very scientific perspective, which actually is a good segue, because [00:23:00] you all, of course the team primarily comprised of, very data oriented

[00:23:06] data scientists, very smart folks PhD's used to, doing all kinds of magic with these big data sets. So in a lot of ways, of course, I would consider [00:23:15] your, your team, very technical and very savvy, but obviously in a way that is really relevant to the work you all do. So my question is, launching a new software as a service product is a pretty big undertaking.

[00:23:29] How [00:23:30] prepared do you think you all were for like building out a web based application? How much did you know about custom software design and development coming into this?

[00:23:41] Matt Cox: [00:23:41] Oh, gosh. like none.

[00:23:46] [00:23:45] I knew that was where we wanted to head. And we, we spoke with several companies that did that, so that we could figure out ballpark how much money it was going to take, and what kind of adoption that was going to require from us to [00:24:00] make this a good decision for us, as an organization. But as far as nuts and bolts, I don't know how to do anything with like sequel or creating some of the backend databases.

[00:24:10] I just knew how to sign up to do some of the enable some other folks [00:24:15] to, to figure that out. So no, the partnerships were critical to being able to stand any of that stuff up, as you said, like we were behind the scenes crunching the numbers that would go into the database, but we're not experts on how to set [00:24:30] up cloud databases, or how to create any of the structures on just even the basic login features. It's I don't know how to do that. What service do you use for that? And then, so we'd go ask you guys, "Oh, okay. Yeah, we're going to, AWS has X, Y, and Z different [00:24:45] things, and we're going to plug those in and I'm just going great."

[00:24:51] Richard Simms: [00:24:51] Yep. I totally get it. So throughout the build process, and again, I think even in a perfect world, like building a product from scratch [00:25:00] there's always hiccups. There's things that, have to be reassessed along the way. What was the hardest part in your mind? What was the biggest lesson learned

[00:25:09] through that process?

[00:25:12] Matt Cox: [00:25:12] I think the most challenging thing for [00:25:15] us, was figuring out how to layer

[00:25:18] multiple equity indicators. Know, it was one thing that had never been done before and all of our prior work, if we wanted to see how two indicators were related to each other, you just built [00:25:30] two separate maps and tried to stick them real close to each other so that you could try to zoom in and be like, okay, this neighborhood looks like this and here's that one.

[00:25:38] And so the ability to actually do the overlays was going to be like a whole new feature and especially [00:25:45] the ability to then see across the distribution, not just, here's one on top of the other, but be able to do some comparisons to say what's going on in the areas of most concern, because that's really where people are going to try to focus their [00:26:00] efforts.

[00:26:00] That, those were whole new problems to solve. So while they don't feel like they're the most technical things that we had to work through, getting the user interface and the user experience piece. We have literally a month [00:26:15] long ongoing argument about colors, to be used as a part of this.

[00:26:21] And we were going back like I said, we were using our listening to her to bounce those ideas off of our users or who we hoped would become users [00:26:30] around, "If it's this color, what's that indicating to you? How is this going to be set up?" That was a long detailed process that in total probably took close to two and a half months to get.

[00:26:41] Yeah. So of the entire build cycle, it was almost half of the [00:26:45] build cycle. That was one problem that was trying to be solved consistently.

[00:26:51] Richard Simms: [00:26:51] Yeah, for sure. And I remember before we even kicked off with you all like understanding and we had discussed this, of course, but just intuitively [00:27:00] understanding that was

[00:27:01] kind of the big question, Mark, that we were going to have to figure out with you all and cause yeah it's, it sounds simple in a sense to overlay two datasets and glean meaning from that. But yeah, there's a lot there that had to be [00:27:15] figured out, which again is a fun problem to solve.

[00:27:17] And I think that to your point, a lot of folks, when they are pursuing a new product, they don't give adequate weight to user experience and how crucial that is for, really getting a product [00:27:30] that's great that folks will adopt and use and, really get value out of, and particularly with GEM.

[00:27:35] It's a very visual experience, dealing with a lot of complexity that you're trying to present in a concise way that someone can pull quickly and [00:27:45] get aligned on what the takeaways are. Yeah, that, that makes a lot of sense that looking back, you would view that as the biggest challenge to work through.

[00:27:52] Great. That's all really good feedback. Since you all launched the product, what's it been like balancing, GEM [00:28:00] with your other responsibilities at Greenlink, because now you still have obviously your consulting and all the expertise there in house, but you're also becoming in a lot of ways, a product company.

[00:28:12] So what's that kind of duality been like?

[00:28:16] [00:28:15] Matt Cox: [00:28:16] Yeah, I'd say it's a challenge. So we've got, we have our different teams and they have different projects that they're working on. GEM became its own creative team as a result of this. And so I think that's been helpful just to have, [00:28:30] there's a, there's really only kind of one person who spends almost all of her time leading our gem work and then everybody else cycles on for different parts or has a different role to play.

[00:28:41] So we're about a 10 person team and we've got [00:28:45] five of us. So half of the team spends some time on GEM, every week. But the balance between, what the analysts are doing and trying to help push specific requests forward, 90% of their time probably is [00:29:00] not spent on GEM, but we do pull them in to help take a look at specific questions that have come up.

[00:29:07] And probably one of the nicer parts is that it can reinforce the consulting work. Where cities will take a [00:29:15] look at what's happening and then ask us to evaluate specific things for them. Because the city staff don't always have the time or the expertise to, to start to tease out those kinds of questions.

[00:29:27] But so that's been, it's a challenge. [00:29:30] We're building more more capacity to go towards GEM is its own separate operation. And hoping to just continue to see it scale, see that adoption curve continue to go up into the right.

[00:29:45] [00:29:44] Richard Simms: [00:29:44] Yeah. And I know that your team is growing a lot always a great sign. So I'm really happy for you all. One question I had, innovating in the nonprofit space, I feel like, it's a whole different terrain.

[00:29:55] You've obviously got grants you're pursuing, very different [00:30:00] than doing, a for-profit technology startup. What's that been like to you? What are the challenges associated with, trying to secure grants and move quickly in the nonprofit space?

[00:30:12] Matt Cox: [00:30:12] I think that's one spot where our [00:30:15] background and history having been a for-profit startup has been really helpful for us, because we can still, we still bring that mindset to it. So having some of the scrappiness, the sprint [00:30:30] nature towards a lot of things has been a helpful way to keep our heads on in terms of project management and workflows.

[00:30:36] And then like I mentioned earlier, we, we view the grants, the foundations, essentially as investors, but they're only coming on board for [00:30:45] one specific project. So instead of being a venture capitalist or an angel or whomever who's come in to help fund the entire thing that you're doing.

[00:30:54] We're, we're pretty regularly working on 20 plus projects at a time on our team. [00:31:00] And we've got a foundation that's come in to fund one of those. And so you have to treat them like they're a partner, but there are only a partner on 5% of your work stream, which is different. But there's also some real benefits of being able [00:31:15] to scale or to get some of the some of those resources in the, in the door is you start to have success.

[00:31:22] Which does look a lot, like what, what happens with the funding round, like you, you land some successes and you might start to see things start [00:31:30] rolling your direction. That kind of work happens too. Especially as people start to see more of the success that the technologies and the methods that you're applying, how that's benefiting, the areas that they're concerned with. The biggest difference is that they're not [00:31:45] chasing an exit.

[00:31:46] So it's it's trying to push forward the project that you have. But a lot of, and I think a lot of the concern or the major difference too, is that the product itself, many non-profits stand those up, [00:32:00] and then push them out as the completion of one project. It's not viewed as an ongoing effort for, in perpetuity which is not how we're approaching that,

[00:32:10] and it's not how we regularly approach any of the technologies that we work on. We're [00:32:15] looking at these as long-term things that are going to be able to provide value consistently. So it's not just one grant funding, one deliverable. These are building upon one another. It's on some ways that starts to look a bit like [00:32:30] also our experiences from way back with academia, that there's a research agenda, but for us, instead of having it be a research agenda that you get funds to build on and to build towards, we are more in an [00:32:45] application agenda. And we're trying to see, we're trying to help certain change come into being, across the country that can work on climate change that can work on equity that can work on healing, our democracy and making it so that our processes are better [00:33:00] processes in total. And it's just figuring out, like, how do we do that?

[00:33:04] Where are we now? And how do we continue to to make that push forward or continue to innovate on our side to drive that. But we've definitely [00:33:15] cultivated a culture that, that definitely is looking for, what's the best way to go about this. Which is where a lot of our data science team lives and breathes is, we're exploring all these new, no network [00:33:30] architectures, and we're bringing those to the data and seeing if that did better,

[00:33:33] and how do we roll that into a, the different pieces that we're already sharing with our users. So it's different, but a lot of the lessons I think [00:33:45] carry over in a way that's been really helpful for us and then makes serves as a differentiator for us in the way that we think about innovation and then product development in total.

[00:33:57] Richard Simms: [00:33:57] Yeah. Very cool. and I know [00:34:00] certainly from our initial discovery work with you and ongoing conversations, there's a big vision for GEM. I think that in a very good way. You all are at the tip of the iceberg in terms of all the neat things that you think you can [00:34:15] expand upon with additional data and functionality under the platform.

[00:34:19] And, we, tell people a lot, we might've told you when we first considered working together, software is never done. So it's like you have to embrace that attitude. [00:34:30] And, hopefully that means also that you're adding functionality it's growing, you're adapting to feedback. But it also is just the reality of stuff,

[00:34:38] that's web based, it's in a very dynamic environment, so there's always work that goes into kind of supporting it and make sure everything's running [00:34:45] smoothly. And yeah, of course, I totally understand trying to get others in that space to understand this as an ongoing investment with increasing impact over time.

[00:34:55] Great. So I started to mention this earlier in the conversation, I [00:35:00] think that, rightfully recently, especially a bit over the last few years, I think equity issues have been coming more to the forefront of kind of the public consciousness certainly with COVID. I think that's amplified that and your average person's [00:35:15] mindset here in the US and so I think you all's work is just that much more important,

[00:35:19] day by day here. So I guess taking a bigger picture look like it's a big question, but how do you think the kind of equity space is [00:35:30] evolving? What role do you think technology will play, in nonprofits that are trying to tackle some of these issues that you all are focused on?

[00:35:37] Are there any kind of major trends or thoughts you have there about where this is all going?

[00:35:44] Matt Cox: [00:35:44] Yeah, I think [00:35:45] it's a merge, a merger between what a lot of those community-based organizations have been saying and trying to do for decades matching up with things like what we're able to prove out now with data [00:36:00] and a supportive political environment, especially in a lot of our cities.

[00:36:05] That's really gonna make it so that the change can happen. We're looking at changes, as I mentioned immediately, as far as process equity goes [00:36:15] and making sure that you actually have a community represented at the table that they're not being planned for, they're being planned with, is just a real change to the way that the policy has traditionally been made,

[00:36:28] in this country. And so [00:36:30] that's, and that's like the first thing that you see come along then you start to work on kind of distributional equity and starting to see, who's dealing with higher levels of all kinds of burdens. So it's not just the energy burden stuff, but who's got high housing burdens?

[00:36:43] Who's paying a lot for their [00:36:45] transportation? A lot of the stuff like in COVID one of the things that our cities have been focusing on, has been, what's the overlap between communities that don't have access to broadband and also don't have access to healthcare, if we're trying to [00:37:00] have,

[00:37:00] and that's something GEM shows them, but it's not anything that's like in our wheelhouse necessarily. So that's been a lot of interesting work to try to bring together people who do know that, who are the healthcare equivalents of Greenlink to get them in the room to [00:37:15] start to help advance that conversation.

[00:37:17] But seeing how those distributional inequities really play out across communities so that you can start to, to recognize, where the racial disparities are, where the wealth disparities are, where the health outcome [00:37:30] disparities are, and start to design things to work on that. And then the last thing that's the long-term big picture is institutional intergenerational equity issues that are going to be things more like climate change, but also just

[00:37:45] [00:37:44] infrastructure and how things are built across communities that are going to last for 30, 50, a 100 years. What kind of investments and what kind of attention needs to be paid in order to make sure that's being done in a way that's fair to [00:38:00] everybody. Which also historically not really a big

[00:38:03] consideration, when you look at things like red lining or the way that the interstate highway systems were developed, like they just, they did things. It was not really with the input of community or sometimes, in many times it [00:38:15] intentionally exclusionary that have created, issues that we're still dealing with now.

[00:38:19] So all of that's been really great to start to see progress on, and I think it's also in a spot now where accountability is starting to come back also. So there's, communities or [00:38:30] politicians that have made pledges that said they wanted to work in a specific way and maybe have gotten a pass for a year,

[00:38:36] are now starting to feel some pressure for not necessarily living up to what those pledges were. Which I think is it's necessary. If we're going to actually see the [00:38:45] change then those leaders have to be held accountable for the statements and the commitments that they made.

[00:38:52] Richard Simms: [00:38:52] Yeah, for sure. It's very interesting,

[00:38:54] and I think that, you all live in a world with a lot of complexity in terms of the different parties that have to come [00:39:00] together to really take action on like this data or these insights that are being provided. And to your point, I hope that we're coming into a really good time where there's enough alignment that people can really run with this stuff and we can see change.

[00:39:14] And, one thing [00:39:15] that I think is really cool about public health in general. And I think GEM does this in a very sophisticated way and there's a lot more coming there, I know. But in a lot of instances is just getting data in front of people, so [00:39:30] that everyone's looking at the same thing, and so that, people can make informed decisions and be educated,

[00:39:34] and that's what I think is really neat is it doesn't always have to be some  AI innovation with virtual reality. Sometimes it's just, people need [00:39:45] data. They need to know what's going on. That needs to inform decisions. Let's get everyone aligned on what's happening here. And so I think that's really neat.

[00:39:52] And yeah, I think what you all are doing is super important. I'm thrilled to get a chance to play a small part in supporting what you're [00:40:00] doing and yeah, really appreciate you being on the show. It looks like we're about out of time, but this has been great. You've given a lot of great insights and really appreciate your time.

[00:40:10] So before we sign off, Matt, where can listeners go to connect with you [00:40:15] or learn more about Greenli-, Greenlink Analytics or GEM specifically?

[00:40:20] Matt Cox: [00:40:20] Yeah, so you can find me on LinkedIn. So do you search for Matt Cox and Greenlink, I'll come up there.

[00:40:26] You can find more about Greenlink Analytics at [00:40:30] www.greenlinkanalytics.org. And GEM has its own standalone webpage that's www.equitymap.org.

[00:40:40] Richard Simms: [00:40:40] Awesome. Definitely encourage folks to check that stuff out and thanks [00:40:45] again, Matt. We really appreciate it. It's been great having you on the Digital Footprint.

[00:40:49] Matt Cox: [00:40:49] Now thanks so much for the invitation.

[00:40:51] Richard Simms: [00:40:51] All right. Bye-bye.

[00:40:53] Matt Cox: [00:40:53] Bye-bye.

[00:40:56] Richard Simms: [00:40:56] Okay.